Fragments
by Soulreciever
Summary: A sellection of oneshot drabbles focusing on Nealfire and his relationships with the rest of the Once gang. NB: All written pre Manhattan and thus all highly AU, either hinting or directly featuring Swanfire and somewhat angsty about the edges.
1. Scarf

When he'd first come through, out into a world of noise, bright neon and carriages without horses he'd been understandably scared.

Had screamed and clawed at anyone who'd tried to get him a 'nice clean set of clothes' even after everything had stopped smelling like papa…like home.

Eventually they'd sedated him, stripped him of everything but the scarf and, once the nightmares had set in, he'd been glad of the fact. Indeed he'd gone to give them the scarf so many times, to request the one last scrap of his boyhood be burned away with everything else and yet the words had never quite formed.

So he'd put the scarf in a box, locked it away with the fear and broken shards of who he'd been before the portal and started again.

Once or twice after Emma, beautiful, almost impossible, Emma had stumbled into his life he'd been tempted to show her the scarf, to give her all that he was in wish that she'd give just enough to agree to walk life with him always. There was just so much tied to it though, a poison he knew he'd likely truly never be able to leach without telling her EVERYTHING and sounding like mad man.

Then.

Then August had happened and he'd absorbed himself into his 'other' life, had locked the scarf into the safe of a low rent apartment and all but forgotten that it existed until his father had broken his way on in.

That he had, indeed, seemed so very much papa rather than dark one, that Emma had been there in his shadow, hands looped tight into the smaller hands of the son he'd never known existed, had prompted him to agree to follow in his wake.

To attempt to be again Baelfire after so long being anything but.

In the threshold of the fragment remains of the door, balanced between one 'world' and the next he'd been struck a strange little compulsion.

Had worked his way back through the reams of empty trinkets, pulled the scarf from the safe and, once more, settled its soft material against his neck.


	2. Father

Two years ago he'd been a literal ghost of a man, left nothing but the bitter, broken, wish of belonging somewhere that'd been stirred again one single word and the night haunted so impossibly still the face of the man who had once soothed away such terrors.

The man who'd taught him the only lesson he'd believed he'd never forget, the only lesson that'd been all but scarred into his skin as he'd grown in this new, crueller, world and yet still, somehow, he'd made the same mistake.

Had allowed fear to steer his feet on a path that'd had him so very close to destroying everything without ever realising he'd done as such.

Then.

Then papa had appeared before him, older and so much more fragile than he recalled, only the lingering spark of the Dark one there in his eyes stopping him from simply forgetting everything that very instant.

They'd talked over coffee, he bleeding out everything he'd written that other life in that clumsy, childish, letter and papa telling him the bits of the story he'd felt safe giving over, pleading forgiveness and offering his arms as though he were still Bae and he simply papa.

He'd known there were harder truths to hear and, when they'd at last come, he'd sworn he'd never again talk to the man, had screamed and raged until all he'd felt was empty.

Perhaps if papa had been alone that day then that would have been the end to it all, but…

As they'd stepped out into the autumn chill that first day an impossible dream had been balanced on the railing outside, golden hair blowing somewhat in the wind.

She'd smiled a weary little smile and it'd only been when he'd caught sight the charm on her necklace that he'd felt safe enough to smile back and state simply, "hey."

They'd had so much more to talk about, so much more to hide and yet the very moment she'd introduced Henry to him he'd understood well the time for such things had passed. Understood that he needed to let the fear go and trust her implicitly if he was ever to hope of even getting the chance of undoing the harm he'd caused by letting it in the first place.

She'd been understandably weary, a good word from August, as well as a little time, bringing them to a point where she'd tolerate him talking to Henry and, from there, it'd just been a matter of patience.

Of trusting in the power of true love.

He'd thought that being able to call her his wife would be the greatest joy he'd ever experience and then two blue lines had shifted everything onto its axes.

Now, looking into his daughter's beautiful eyes, it's as though suddenly he's been gifted utter clarity.

As though his whole life has been nothing until this moment and he still can't quite decide what he's done to deserve it.

"So, what are you going to call her?" Snow looks about as tired as he'd felt a few instants previous, though given that she and Charming have been taking rounds through the night that's about to be expected.

Less expected is the twinge as he takes in the mirror of his joy in her face, the pride she clearly feels for her beautiful, wondrous, daughter.

A painful sense of the absence from this moment and, placing his daughter gently back into her mother's arms he states,

"I need to make a call." Emma's sleepily easing the ruffled feathers the slight sharpness will have caused as he scrambles from the room and, stopping only to wave Charming and Henry in, makes his way out into the open air.

It's not really needed, there's enough signal in the warm to make calls but he can't quite make himself make this call in earshot of the rest of his family.

Which is odd, given why he's doing as such in the first place, but he'd given up attempting to rationalise his subconscious logic long, long, ago.

Honestly it's likely good thing that Belle answers despite his having dialled the shop, his head's so scrambled right now he's as likely to make the rift worse rather than better and, taking breath, he states "It's Bae."

The old nickname as peace offering and yet still Belle is stating, "You've hurt him enough," with more than a little accusation in her voice.

It's testament to how much he likes her, to how good having her, saving her, has been for his papa that he doesn't snap back, that he allows the vulnerability in as he responds,

"I know, and I didn't ring to make it worse."

"Maybe not, but you didn't ring to apologise either, did you?"

"No, I called to say that I understand, that today I held my daughter in my arms for the first time and I got it.

"You see he told me over and over those first weeks that it was all for me, that he'd taken on all that darkness to keep me happy and yet I kept thinking that if that really was the case why didn't he just let me go? Allow me to fight and thus assure I had a papa to come home to?

"Today I saw that it was because that, as a father, keeping your child safe is all but written into you, an all consuming compulsion that a force such as The Dark One could so very easily manipulate. Twist and twist until having magic seemed as vital part of assuring that I stayed safe…until he became lost enough to believe magic all he needed.

"It doesn't make anything better, doesn't take away the fact that the Dark One killed my mother using his hands but, maybe, it means I'm ready to accept that's what happened. That I can get to a place where they're again two separate entities in my head." A moment, as she likely takes it all in, pulls cohesive sense from what's really little more than thinking aloud and then,

"So what next?"

"Come to the hospital."

"Give me a minute." She places the phone down with as much care as possible and there's a long moment as her sweet little voice imparts everything to papa, broken occasionally his deeper, older voice, and then,

"We'll be there as soon as we can." He's not stupid enough to think that'll be it, that there won't be at least one point down the line where he'll regret ever starting this again and yet…

For the first time since a plucky blonde had broken her way into an already stolen car he felt truly excited about just what the future might hold.


	3. Cloak

_He is in the forest, it's raining and the cloak on his back has become so sodden that it feels almost as though weighted with rocks. _

_ A breaking branch so close that he hesitates, turns his head down for what can only be a minute in compulsive need to know, to be sure. Still the monster is there when he again looks up, all scales, hawk gold eyes and endless, endless, smile. _

_ "__Why are you running, lad?" The monster enquires, his stolen voice edged in the same sugar all adults try because they believe it makes them seem nice._

_A voice that would steal you away in the night if you let it._

_ Panic now and he tries to run the other way, the sodden ground, the weight of the cloak making it all so very fruitless. _

_ The monster is there again in the rush of a heartbeat, smile dangerous now and moon catching the dagger clenched tight in fingers. _

_ "__Are you scared of me lad?" It enquires as it walks towards him, all predator in sure confidence of a kill. _

_ Yet as it comes close enough to smell it is all comfort, safety, and for a moment his heart slows. _

_ "__I was only trying to help you, to keep you safe," The monster states as he slips an arm about him in firm, firm, hug. It smiles as he relaxes, all tooth and threat and he knows then, cold and certain, that that shall be his last sight. _

_ The sharp sting of blade and, "But if you can't see that I can't trust you and if I can't trust you then you can't live," as the world focuses in on that smile…_

He is all but soaked as he wakes to the sight of Emma's beautiful eyes and the warmth of her hands smoothing gently across his forehead.

"Bad dream?" They've been together for so long now that he knows that's all she wants to know, trusts implicitly that she's not trying to nose her way into things he's no want to talk of.

Still he wishes sometimes that she would, that she would push him into leaching the poison from his soul and that perhaps then, at last, he might be free the nightmares.

She'd think him crazy, of course, likely abandon him in fear of somehow catching that supposed madness and it's why he keeps quiet. Why he simply kisses her hands and responds, "Yeh, but I'm all right now." Because loosing her is fast claiming monopoly over his darker dreams, wiping away the memory of the monster with his father's face that'd haunted him even Before.

In an odd way he's glad for the fact because at least now he can cling to Emma and prove it all simply dream where as Before…Before it'd been so very, very, true.

But it also means he's let her so much closer than he'd intended, closer than was likely sane or safe for the either of them and that he's so very, very, afraid that these new nightmares shall also become reality.

A thought that has his very soul frozen and, instinctively, he pulls her that little bit closer. She's suspicious, of course, but sleepy enough that she still doesn't question, that she'll likely have written this all off as dream by the morning. Which makes him brave, has him telling her that he loves her the very first time, which gains him the reward of one of her smiles and, "love you too," before she's gone completely.


	4. Blanket

He recognises the fabric draped over his father's shoulders the moment he see it, finds his fingers stretching for it on impulse after the waitress has left them alone with their drinks.  
Of course he's snapping them back the moment he realises what he's doing, feeling headache brewing for the mix of emmotions for the regection on his father's face as he does as such.  
They talk almost in tandem but a moment later, he offering hollow appology and his father profering the blanket like tallismen as he states,  
"Here, it's yours anyway."  
It smells, still, impossibly like hay, wool and the spices his mother wore always against her skin.  
Like home.  
For a moment he doesn't care how crazy he knows he looks from the outside, all but burries his head in the soft fabric in the foolish hope that, somehow, he might find himself swallowed back to those happier times.  
Then there's a sharp sound as someone drops something back of house and he's again Neal Cassady a man the Darkness inside of the one across from him would be proud to name allie, a man worlds away from the boy he knows that other has given likely far too much to find.  
"Not anymore," he responds as he hands the thing back, the new hurt the action causes slicing that little shallower as reality settles in.  
As, at last, he fully lets go his boyhood fantasies and accepts that this is what his life is to be.  
That he is the price of his father's magic.


End file.
